"Bertha, your absentmindedness is singular. What is it that you are thinking about? Tell me!"
"I was thinking of my brother Raoul. I hope his illness will not grow worse during the delay that our journey to London is unfortunately undergoing," answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in accents of deep emotion.
And after a moment's silence she continued:
"But there is in all this something that seems unexplainable to me. Monsieur Noirmont left London two or three days after the date of the letter that informed you of my brother's illness, and still Monsieur Noirmont stated to us only a short time ago, at Versailles, that at the time of his departure from England he left Raoul in perfect health."
"Monsieur Noirmont must have wished to conceal the truth from us," replied the Marchioness, slightly embarrassed; "people always dislike to be the bearers of bad news."
"And yet nothing seemed more sincere than the extreme astonishment with which Monsieur Noirmont was struck when he learned from us of my brother's illness, and—"
"Good God, my dear, I wish I had your facility for doubting facts," said the Marchioness, impatiently interrupting her niece; "but I am not allowed to entertain any such doubts. I only console myself in advance with the thought of the excellent influence that will be exercised upon Raoul's health by my presence, and yours especially—"
"Mine?" answered Bertha sadly; "I hope it will be so."
"That should be, to you, not a hope, but a certainty."
"My elder brother has until now shown so much coolness towards me—"
"My niece, such a reproach!"
"It is not a reproach—it is the expression of a sorrow. For the rest, Raoul and I have spent our childhood and the first years of our youth almost as strangers to each other. He lived near my father, I near my mother. I can not be surprised at Raoul's indifference towards me."
"You greatly err, my dear, with regard to what you wrongly, very wrongly, term his indifference. Do you forget that by virtue of his right of primogeniture, with the death of my brother, he has become the head of our family? The quality of head of our family confers upon Raoul the full authority that your father and mother were vested with during their lives over their children. As a matter of course, such authority imposes upon Raoul, in his relations towards you and Guy, your second brother, a certain degree of reserve, of gravity, I might say of severity that must in no wise be confounded with indifference. He, on the contrary, is exceptionally attached to you. But I must say—and I beg you not to see in my words even the shadow of a reproach," the Marchioness added, insinuatingly, "I must admit that a certain turn to freedom in your disposition, a certain stubborn way of looking at some things from a viewpoint that is wholly opposed to Raoul's, may have occasionally, I shall not say made him take umbrage at you, but may have given some uneasiness to the warm solicitude that he entertains for you—seeing that it is his duty to fill towards you the strict functions of a father."
"I might answer you, aunt, that Raoul showed himself cold and severe towards me before the loss of my father and my poor mother—a loss that would be irreparable to me but for the certainty of some day re-rising into new life with that idolized mother, in the spirit world where we shall all meet again."
"Your father's loss must, accordingly, be less irreparable to you than your mother's," observed the Marchioness with some bitterness; "to say the least, the difference that you establish in your grief for the departed ones, is strange."
"Aunt," replied Bertha with a firm voice, "I respected my father and adored my mother. She nursed me, brought me up, educated me. I never left her. My happiest days were spent at her side in Brittany, in the retirement of our Castle of Plouernel, where I spent my first eighteen years, while all that time my father lived at court. I barely saw him once every year for a short time during his transient visits to the castle when the hunting season would bring him to his domains. So you see, my mother has left me numerous tokens of remembrance. They were continuous and loving, profoundly loving. They render, they will ever render her loss—or rather, her absence—irreparable to me, at least in this world. But let us return to Raoul. As I told you a moment ago, he always showed himself, even when still young, cold and even haughty towards me, whenever he accompanied my father into Brittany, and he felt offended at my having my own way of looking at things, a way that frequently was different from his own."
"The reason is, my dear, that for people of our class there is but one way of looking upon a number of things—such as religion, morals, politics—"
"In that case I must be an exception to the general rule; but that is of no consequence. Believe me, aunt, I have the liveliest desire to find myself mistaken with regard to Raoul's sentiments towards me; and, I must admit it, I have been profoundly touched by his request to see me at a time when, as I hear, he is seized with a grave disease, the reality of which I still wish I could doubt. I did not expect such a proof of tenderness on his part. And so, as I said before, I hope Raoul's illness has not grown worse, seeing that, alas! like so many others, he has preserved the prejudice of death, a thing that adds such cruel agonies to all illness."
"The prejudice of death!" repeated the Marchioness, shrugging her shoulders and hardly able to control herself. "That is one of your extravagances! You set yourself up in rebellion against our holy religion!"
"A sublime extravagance!" replied Bertha with a radiant smile. "It suppresses superstitions; it frees us from the terror of decease; it imparts to us the certainty of living anew near those whom we have loved."
"My dear niece, I would take you to be out of your mind, were it not that I know you really derive pleasure from such eccentricities. But however that may be, I have the infirmity of sharing with your brother and with so many other weak minds the vulgar prejudice of death. I hope, and I have every reason to hope, that the state of Raoul's health, although grave, is by no means alarming. Far away from his own country, his family, his friends, but still considering it to be a sacred duty on his part to remain in London in the service of the King our master, he has fallen into a sort of listless languor, a black melancholy, and he relies upon our presence, and yours especially, to dissipate his distemper."
"A distemper of languor?" replied Mademoiselle Plouernel pensively. "It seems to me such a disease is generally preceded by symptoms of dejection and sadness; but Monsieur Noirmont said to us that when he left Raoul, my brother's spirits, good looks and genuinely French mirthfulness eclipsed the most brilliant seigneurs of the court of King Charles II."
"Oh, I doubt not that! Poor Raoul is capable of the greatest sacrifices in order worthily to represent his master, our great King; he would even suppress his physical pains and moral sufferings."
"Excuse me, aunt, but I am unable to understand you. I was not aware that my brother had a political mission to fill."
"And yet there is nothing more simple! Does not your brother, charged with a mission to King Charles II during the absence of the French ambassador Monsieur Croissy, represent his Majesty Louis XIV at London? Consequently, however deep his melancholia may be, is not my nephew bound to conceal it from the eyes of the English court, so as not to be outdone in gracefulness, wit and mirth by the English courtiers, and to continue to eclipse them all in honor of his master? Thus it is that Raoul is fulfilling the duties imposed upon him by his mission to King Charles. But," added the Marchioness, after this plausible answer to her niece's objections, and wishing, moreover, to change the subject of a conversation that embarrassed her, "but by the way of the good King Charles—the name of that gallant and joyful prince leads me back to the subject that we wandered from with this long digression upon my nephew. I must repeat to you what I was saying and which your absentmindedness at the moment prevented you from hearing. I was speaking of the beautiful young Breton lady."
"What did you say about her, aunt?"
"I was saying: Admit that the lot of the beautiful Mademoiselle Kerouaille, who is to-day the Duchess of Portsmouth, and one of the greatest ladies of England, by reason of the favor that she has received, is a lot